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Comment by fermentation | Hacker News Reader

This is an interesting idea!

Took a quick look at pricing, looks to be about 100/mo for a weekly call (so about $25/call).

Yet the person making the call gets paid $12. That seems like quite a markup (and is easily seen by users).

A portion of this is probably taken up by the humans doing the matching. Folks will probably tell you to better hide this cost, but maybe you could just be transparent and tell the users?

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Yo! Founder here - I am definitely still playing around with the pricing and this is really great feedback. I don't want the profit margin to be jarring - I want to keep the lights on for the business. Do you think the service itself should be cheaper or should I pay callers a larger amount?

Yo! founder who pays for the calls. Are elderly paying for calls? Did not get business model.

Either the elderly person or a representing party like a child or friend who wants them engaging in more social interaction.

Cool idea. HN might not like the margin, but I think it's pretty reasonable. $24 per hour to talk on the phone is solid pay. Seems the more important question is just whether you can get the quality of people you want for whatever price you choose. The leftover margin is irrelevent.

Sup…nice company. Definitely filling a need that is very beneficial to an ignored group :) I run a digital recruiter and can tell you for what you are offering - work from home at $24 per hour, that is a very excellent and competitive wage across numerous markets in the US. One thing to note is that, in one example, people who were in heavy labor don’t want to go back and want to try something new because of the pandemic. Something less hard on their bodies per se. so what I’m trying to say is that you should also have a good sized talent pool at the moment. If you are willing to hire younger people and give them a chance - low skilled and young labor is asking around $15-$20 hour which is really high for their level, but for the type of talent you’re looking (I’m assuming) you’d be a standout match and be able to accommodate. There’s also lots of justice involved individuals (those that were formally incarcerated) that need jobs and you get tax discounts for hiring them as full time employees. Not sure if you have security issues with them but this segment would very much appreciate a job such as this. Best of luck - if you can market your positions well, you will not have an issue getting talent unlike everyone else right now…

Tl:dr - you’re paying a very good and fair wage for what you’re offering and should probably have many interested candidates when recruiting.

Neither actually. I suspect you already have some vetting process for callers or have at least thought of this. Just lay it out on the signup page and you have sold me on paying extra.

Charge less and take a smaller cut. My partner was immediately excited when I mentioned she could talk to older folks, but told me "I'd never work for someone taking that large of a cut".

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